The Netflix Effect

Formula 1 has had a wild and historic rise in popularity with the addition of the Las Vegas Grand Prix. The second American race was added in two years. 

In its history, Formula 1 struggled to connect with its younger audience and frankly, the former owners couldn’t care less. In an exclusive interview with Campaign Asia, former Formula 1 owner Berrnie Ecclstine stated, “I don’t know why people want to get to the so-called ‘young generation’. Why do they want to do that? Is it to sell them something? Most of these kids haven’t got any money. I’d rather get to the 70-year-old guy with plenty of cash.” With this approach to marketing Formula 1 would be on an eventual downfall from a prominent sports entity. That was until Liberty Media bought the controlling power of Formula One in 2017. 

Liberty Media is an American-based mass media company that has changed the sport. Liberty Media brought forth a new era of management and investment into Formula 1. Strategies categorized as Americanising built the framework to make the sport a better investment. As part of the push to change the Formula 1 brand to better hit the demographic of young fans, Liberty pushed heavily into social media and created narratives around the sport to create compelling stories and shed more light on the sport. This was done by opening the rights for teams to create more content without restrictions, releasing behind-the-scenes content and most influential to date, the Netflix original series, “Formula 1: Drive to Survive”. 

“Formula 1: Drive to Survive” is an original docu-series produced by Box to Box for Netflix following the world of Formula 1 through the season. It covers the tense relationship between teams, exclusive interviews, unparalleled access to the teams and behind-the-scenes drama. It portrays the different aspects of the sport from money to competitiveness and egos. What makes this series so impactful is what it did to the sport. But an understanding of the sports business is needed before you can truly see the full impact of the sport. 

Traditionally sports are mainly consumed through the game-day broadcast of any given sport. The NFL’s estimated revenue for every fiscal year until 2030 is 13.3 billion dollars. Each game brings in millions of live viewers which is turned into TV advertising spaces. The problem that a lot of these companies are having is paying a ridiculous sum of money to acquire the rights for the leagues. For a lot of these companies, it is not the best plan to, figuratively, put all of their chips in one basket to hopefully turn a profit. Especially a company like Netflix that has no foothold or experience in the traditional space. 

Acquiring the rights to a major sports league would be a risk that is too big to take. Netflix has looked to other avenues of moving into sports like outright buying leagues to prevent the large media rights deals, but all have fallen through. This leads Netflix to the outcome of the next best part of the sports themselves. Docuseries. 

What makes docuseries so special in sports is built into the sport itself. People love sports because it is a live story happening in real-time no part of it is scripted or needs to happen. It is all unexpected. People get the basic idea of the story when they watch races. The Docuseries can give you all of the drama and information to make you more invested in the sport. There is no need for a writer either because all you need is the ability to showcase the story the best. 

 As Junior Kayla Truitt commented “…for newcomers I think they find it interesting because it’s a very very over-dramatic documentary. It has that element of humor that makes you connect with certain drivers and it helps you understand the amount of stress the drivers are put under.” These docuseries also drew the same amount of crazy viewership without having to pay the ginormous media rights contracts. Which allows Netflix to pull crazy viewership without the need for expensive rights. 

A necessary aspect that allowed for the success of the docuseries is the engagement with the sport. Sports leagues can get eyes without much trouble, but engagement in turning people into fans is king. When I asked Avid Formula 1 Fan Mrs.Murray stated. “Oh, I actually don’t watch the show anymore I ended up watching it though …only three-quarters of the second season. Then I stopped caring about the show so much and I started following my teams and my drivers… I would say that I am more of a fan of the sport now.” Formula 1 dove heavily into social media after the acquisitions to acquire the most young fans. Hand and hand with “Drive to Survive”, social gave the fan unparallel access and information about the sport that allowed true fandom to be built and nurtured.